After overseas accident following WWI, Riverside Navy seaman’s remains return home – Press Enterprise

Harry G. Robertson was born in July 1900, likely in Los Angeles, as that was where his mother, Elizabeth, was living in spring of that year, when the 1900 census was taken. He had a sister, Margaret, who was 3 years older. His father, James, worked for the railroad, which is probably why he wasn’t listed with the rest of the family in the 1900 census.

At some point the Robertson family moved to northern California, where James and Elizabeth divorced.

Later Elizabeth was referred to as a widow, but that was incorrect. She and her two children moved to Riverside in 1917, where they lived on Penrose Street. A year later, in September 1918, Harry registered for the draft. Harry’s draft card said he was of medium height, slender build, with brown eyes and light brown hair.

Military records available online could not be found for the beginning of Harry’s military career. However, his draft card said he was unemployed at the time he registered. With World War I winding down, Harry joined the Navy perhaps to see some of the world. Harry certainly did get to see the world as he was sent to China via the Philippines, where, as a seaman, he was assigned to the U.S.S. Villalobos to patrol rivers.

On the morning of Sept. 20, 1920, the Villalobos was moored on the Huangpu River at Shanghai, China.

At about 9:20 am, Harry was in a sampan, a flat bottomed wooden boat, with another sailor, cleaning the outside of the Villalobos. Unfortunately, the other sailor slipped and fell into the river. According to a letter sent to his mother by the commander of the Villalobos, Harry helped his ship mate back into the sampan, but the deck of the little wooden boat was slippery and he then fell into the water. Eye witnesses said he wasn’t seen again as the current in the river was very swift. The Riverside Enterprise noted at the time that Harry had been promoted to Seaman 1st Class shortly before his death.

Harry’s body wasn’t found until the following April. He was buried in a Chinese cemetery before his remains were moved to a military cemetery in the Philippines. In April 1921, his remains came home to Riverside, on the transport ship “Thomas,” the very ship he had taken to cross the Pacific at the beginning of his naval career just a few years earlier.